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Friday, August 1, 2014

Netanyahu’s Dilemma: From the War in Gaza to the War at Home

RSIS
Commentary is a platform to provide timely and, where appropriate,
policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical issues and contemporary
developments. The views of the authors are their own and do not represent the
official position of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU.
These commentaries may be reproduced electronically or in print with prior
permission from RSIS and due recognition to the author(s) and RSIS. Please
email: RSISPublications@ntu.edu.sgfor feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, Mr Yang Razali
Kassim.

No. 153/2014 dated 31 July 2014

Netanyahu’s Dilemma: From the War in Gaza to
the War at Home

By
James M. Dorsey

Synopsis

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is likely to face significant political
problems at home and a far less empathetic diplomatic environment abroad once
the guns fall silent in Gaza. Calls in Israel for an inquiry into the
government’s handling of the Gaza crisis and what is being described as an
intelligence failure regarding tunnels built by Hamas are mounting. In
addition, Israel’s relations with its closest allies, the United States and the
European Union, have been bruised even if they continue to uphold the Jewish
state’s right to defend itself.

Commentary

ISRAEL’S RATIONALE for its assault on Gaza has shifted during the
last three weeks of almost uninterrupted hammering of the Hamas-controlled Gaza
Strip, one of the world’s most densely populated territories. The war launched
first to counter Palestinian rockets fired in response to an Israeli crackdown
on Hamas operatives on the West Bank following the kidnapping of three Israeli
teenagers has since focused on underground tunnels that potentially allow
Islamist militia fighters to penetrate Israel, and in recent days on critical
infrastructure such as Gaza’s power supply.

While Israel may be succeeding in severely damaging the military infrastructure
of Hamas and other Islamist groups in Gaza, it realizes that international
discomfort with its heavy-handed approach that has cost the lives of some 1,300
mostly Palestinian civilians and wreacked devastating material damage that will
cost billions to rebuild, means that it does not have a lot of time to
militarily achieve its objectives. It also is dawning on Israel that the
diplomatic and political price it may have to pay is rising by the day. The war
in Gaza will no doubt strengthen calls for a boycott of and sanctions against
Israel and could accelerate EU moves to ban dealings with Israeli entities
based in occupied territory.

Intelligence
Failure

Increasingly, proponents of Israel’s assault on Gaza, who constitute a majority
of the Israeli population, question whether Israel could have countered Hamas’
increasing military prowess in ways that would have been less costly. Military
analysts, after four wars in the last eight years against non-state actors, the
Shiite Islamist militia Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas, are calling for a
review of Israeli military strategy and reorganization of the armed forces.

Revelations that the government long knew about Hamas’ tunnelling operation but
did not consider it a serious enough threat to counter, have sparked demands
for an investigation of what the Israeli media and some analysts are describing
as an intelligence failure. At the core of the alleged failure is whether the
government and the military ignored Hamas’ tunnelling because it had in recent
years downgraded the security threat posed by Palestinians and elevated Iran’s
nuclear program to the most existential threat the Jewish state was facing. As
a result, Israel focused its political, diplomatic, intelligence and military
energies on Iran rather than Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups.

The revelations also raise questions on the government’s real motive in first
cracking down on Hamas on the West Bank and then launching its attack on Gaza.
Critics of Israel charge that the government’s real goal was to prevent the
emergence of an effective Palestinian national unity government that would
group all factions, and that had tacit support from Israel’s allies, because
that would have made it more difficult for Israel to sabotage peace
negotiations while maintaining a façade of seeking to end the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hamas
strengthened

An indication of the political fallout that Netanyahu can expect once the
fighting in Gaza is brought to a halt, is evident in Hamas’ ability to reject
ceasefires despite the punishing Israeli assaults that do not involve a lifting
of the seven-year old Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza. Rather than weakening
Hamas, Israel’s attacks appear to have strengthened it politically to the
degree that it feels it can impose conditions of its own in dealings with
Israel rather than simply respond to Israel’s requirements.

Israeli defence and intelligence sources say the threat posed by the tunnels
only became evident when Palestinians taken prisoner in the early stages of the
Gaza operation disclosed plans for Hamas fighters to infiltrate Israel in a bid
to carry out a massive attack during this coming fall’s season of Jewish high
holidays. Until then Israel had paid limited attention to the tunnels and
discarded various plans involving water ditches, drones, sensors and radars
that could have either neutralized the threat or alerted Israel to them in a
timely fashion.

The damage to Israel’s reputation and relations with its allies is prompting
Israeli leaders to consider whether it should quickly end the fighting in Gaza
despite Netanyahu’s warning that Israelis should brace themselves for a long
campaign. Those considerations are being complicated by Hamas, which is
unwilling to let Israel that easily off the hook and needs to show more than
resilience to Palestinians who have paid dearly in the group’s confrontation
with Israel. A lifting of the Gaza blockade would fit the bill.

Political
accounting and military review

Hamas’ demand
also makes it more difficult for Israel to claim that it has inflicted
debilitating damage on the group and that it may not survive politically
because Gazans will hold it to account. It also puts to rest Israeli claims
that Hamas is desperate for a ceasefire. Hamas has moreover demonstrated that
its command and control remains intact.

The Israeli drive to continue the assault on Gaza is fuelled by the fact that
the resolution of its two earlier conflagrations with the group ultimately
failed to produce results. Israel agreed in 2009 to an unconditional ceasefire
in the hope that it had sufficiently weakened the group and created enough of a
deterrence. Three years later it hoped that a vague, unsigned agreement
mediated by Egypt would do the job. Israel’s problem is that continuing the
assault would likely force it to expand its ground operations at considerable
military, political and diplomatic risk.

With military analysts noting that various incidents in which rockets and
mortars have killed Israeli soldiers, questions are being raised about the
military’s ability to protect Israeli civilians despite the effectiveness of
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defence shield. The questions fuel demands for
a post-war political accounting and a military review.

“Despite many achievements that the army brass can point to, the current war in
Gaza reveals once again the necessity of a comprehensive reorganization of the
military. The training of forces, the equipment in use, combat doctrine, and
operational plans — all will need to be thoroughly investigated when the
hostilities are over,” said Amos Harel, the military correspondent of Ha’aretz
newspaper.James M.
Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute
of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The
Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the same
title.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile